Grave Titan might be fun. Of course it isn't indestructible. You're right that people still leave in terminate and path and such, so a creature board doesn't catch people completely offguard.
I might try hazoret sometime. I like it being indestructible and wins through a bridge and leyline of sanctity, but you're right that we don't want to be empty handed most of the time, so attacking is not as likely as I'd like it to be. I'll try it out one of these day just to see.
Hi, just picked up the deck and haveing a blast.
eagerly awaiting finalnub's part 2 artical.
I have a play where im unsure what is rigth (migth be very obvious).
gain life and draw more?
attack then draw more?
gain life spliceing ritual then draw more?
there is a manamorphose in the deck, I have sided in pacts and I saw Noxious Revival in game one.
pretty sure all of those line's lead to 80%+ win's but want to know who is best and why.
Looks like you have the win locked up there, but I would move to attack, swing in with Griselbrand to get a "free" draw 7 and go from there. If you get another shoal, goryo's, or ritual, then you can get Borborygmos into play to finish it off. Drawing those extra 7 cards increases your overall odds since 14 cards sometimes isn't enough to find the pieces.
My plan A would be to attack, draw 7, then in the next main phase splice the ritual onto shoal (up to 3 red), cast ritual (4 red), splice breach onto another shoal if drawn.
Plan B would be similar to plan A, but should you have whiffed on a shoal or additional SSG / Rituals, then you could cast ritual (3 Red), cast manamorphose (convert at least 1 red to black), faithless looting discard Borborygmos, cast goryo's (if drawn) targeting Borborygmos. This way is vulnerable to surgical extraction (if you think they have that), but you mentioned you have sided in pacts and may draw that in those 21 cards.
Hi, just picked up the deck and haveing a blast.
eagerly awaiting finalnub's part 2 artical.
I have a play where im unsure what is rigth (migth be very obvious).
gain life and draw more?
attack then draw more?
gain life spliceing ritual then draw more?
there is a manamorphose in the deck, I have sided in pacts and I saw Noxious Revival in game one.
pretty sure all of those line's lead to 80%+ win's but want to know who is best and why.
In general, I would always attack with Griselbrand first. You are already a big favourite and one way you can fizzle is if blow your shoals and rituals and whiff on Borborygmos pre-combat without the extra 7 cards from the lifelink. That, or you whiff on Borborygmos, which is another argument for prioritizing cards first and therefore attacking first.
In your case, I would attack , draw 7, shoal pitch wurm splice ritual, and keep going. Many ways you can win here and I doubt it's possible to fizzle given you are 1 mana away, shoal+splice away, or loot+manamorphose away.
Or if you actually have your landdrop, you can win on the spot by playing land, SSGx2, shoal pitch wurm splice ritual (RRR), cast ritual (RRRR), tap land (RRRRx) breach Borborygmos Enraged. But I'm assuming the question is assuming no land drops.
im 8-2 today, only losses to big mistakes (drawing card's to death when I had win and not drawing with grisel before blocks and ending on 7 life after blocks)
I have another one (please say so if this type of question's are not wanted)
all relevant spells in hand should be displade here, last 2 cards in deck is shoal and land and I have no landdrop
so quesetion, is there a way to win here? or am I forced to manamorphos and hope I hit on the 50/50 for the win?
spoiler I cast manamophose and drew...... shoal better lucky then good
It looks like the remaining two cards are Manamorphose and Borborygmos Enraged. Do you not have shattering sprees in?
Anyway, I think the relevant question to ask is can you beat a TKS next turn? Given that you've milled yourself to 2, I'm not sure what the answer is.
If you manamorphose, you win 50% of the times If it's a Shoal, you win by Shoal pitch Wurm splice Breach into Borborygmos. If you hit your Borborygmos, I would move to discard and keep SSG, Breach, Breach, Breach, Wurm, Griselbrand, Land. However,if they slam temple into TKS you are locked out if they take the Griselbrand, as neither a Wurm or Borborygmos is lethal in one shot and the TKS death trigger will mill you out.
If you just pass here and discard to something like: land, SSG, Breach, Breach, Griselbrand, Wurm, land. You don't have a way to ensure you have 3 griselbrands, a breach next turn, and a second breach the turn after. If you keep the hand that I outlined above and the opponent slams a TKS, they woudl smartly take the griselbrand and block the Wurm. We would be dead from the TKS death trigger since that would draw us the last card and we don't have any way to deal the last 2 points of damage.
Therefore, I think we just take our chances and manamorphose to try and hit the 50% guaranteed kill. If not, I would discard and keep: ritual, land, breach, breach, Wurm, x x. We are still dead to TKS with this line, but we've established that we are dead to TKS in all the other lines. I could be missing a piece in this puzzle though, but this seems correct. And the answer is pretty counterintuitive too, as I was inclined to just pass.
Last piece: I am not sure what your draw order was, but I'd be inclined to believe that you drew too many cards here. I would always try to evaluate what's the best turn that the opponent could have next turn, and if we can still beat that turn, I would be more inclined to slow down and pass. I would be inclined to believe that somewhere down the line, we could've sculpted a hand with two fast mana, land, two breach, and two wurm (unclear if you had two wurms left, but quite possible since you are at 11 life and therefore you had life to spare). WIth that hand, the opponent cannot beat us save for a surgical extraction on Breach, but we are not beating that line anyway without a shattering spree.
this pic only showes 25 of 45 cards in my hand, ill have to look at replay to remember if I had spree's.
I have a big leak in not knowing when to pass (I have still not passed after getting a gris in play)
Yea, one of the skills pilots will need to pick up (perhaps through some painful lessons during fizzled turns and lost games - I've been there and I'm sure we all have) is knowing when to stop. Drawing cards in 7s is fun, but sometimes sculpting an unbeatable hand for the next turn is enough.
Hey there everyone, I've been lurking on here for a bit after finalnub told me about this forum at GP Toronto. It's really awesome to see so many shoal players in one place! Just thought I'd Chime in about the "lethal puzzle".
This situation is obviously way easier to solve if you did bring your shattering sprees in. Secondly, I'm assuming that our opponent went T1: Temple>Cage. To me this indicates that's probably the only reason they kept the hand and we probably don't have to worry about TKS coming next turn because at worst the odds of that happening are 3/52 as it looks like they missed a land drop already.
The right play is probably SSG, SSG, Manamorphose. If you hit you win if not Collective Brutality. See if they can TKS you. If not just keep a winning hand. If its possible, Keep a hand that wins next turn but also allows them to mess up should you get TKS'd like: Breach x2, Ritual, Borborygmos Enraged, Worldspine Wurm, untapped land, X. This way if they take ritual you win off of splice/breaching the wurm at them because of them being at 11 from Collective Brutality. Requires your opponent to misplay but sometimes that's your out. Bonus points if you bluff that your last card is the third ritual that you desperately needed.
I'd have to agree with finalnub that there probably was a point which you could of slowed down and passed. How did they game end up anyways?
good to see you here man:) great point about brutality drain bringing them within Wurm>TKS range. we still won't be able to beat a TKS on Wurm but squeezing out nonzero percentage points by giving the opponent rope to make a mistake is good.
Hey thread, I've been lurking since late last year but only playing the deck since January. Just wanted to stop in and thank finalnub and everyone else for all the content/puzzles. While I'm still learning the deck, but I've found it incredibly satisfying to pull of intricate lines and playing around hate, and turn 2'ing people has been excellent fun.
2-1 vs Jund.
Won game 1 in a turn 2 kill. Game 2 I lost even though I had turn 1 blood moon - he just top decked basics. For game 3 I changed Moons to Chalices and got turn 1 chalice on 1. It was a grindy game which I won in the end via TTB.
2-1 vs Bogles.
I think on game 2 I played Chalice on 1 turn 1 on the play which kinda shutdown his plan completely. I also learned I do not get wurm tokens if there is a Rest In Peace on board.
2-1 vs Affinity.
Yeah he did not have interaction against me. Sideboarded in Anger of the God and Shattering Spree, out went Night's Whispers as they are too slow against that deck.
2-1 vs Mardu tokens(?).
What a match. He told me after the match he had 4x Surgical Extraction in the deck after sideboard and he did not find one. Oh well...
Sorry for a miserably low on detail report - I usually forget my opponents and sideboard things. It is just that the matches were so close (i.e. topdecked the win at 1 life against bogles) that it could have gone either way. I think hardest thing was to answer question "should I discard griselbrand if I dont have another fatty, goryo's or TTB?" in the matches, because I did not know which one was more likely to be drawn.
Modern: BRG Griselbrand reanimator, BUR Grixis Control, UR Blue moon (with Possibility Storm sometimes) Legacy: BU Reanimator, BU Omni-tell, BUW Tin Fins, BUR ANT / TES, <> Eldrazi Stompy
Hi everybody,
I'm planning on dusting off Grishoalbrand for a tournament this weekend, and I was wondering what everybody's opinions are on the sideboard for the post-unban meta.
My initial thoughts is that maybe Chalice isn't as good as it was before (with DS on the decline). Lots of midrange decks don't care all that much about Chalice, right?
Also, is Blood Moon good now? Yes, there are a lot of greedy manabases, but it seems that people are ready for it. And we don't really need them against big mana.
If that's the case, it opens up a ton of sideboard slots we could be using for our worst matchups. Any thoughts?
If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces C instead of any other type and amount. Each spell a player casts costs 1 more to cast for each other spell that player has cast this turn.
How detrimental does this feel to you guys? Obviously does very little vs the extremely fast hands, but is brutal if we go off later on. Maybe we'll need to run the 3rd Shattering Spree, or maybe some number of Abrade?
We'll have to wait and see how the card is adopted / how people sideboard against us. I could see this coming in for opponents in decks that had no / little game against us, but I'm not convinced (yet) it'll be a widely used option vs griselband decks. It does make Death and Taxes style decks really annoying. Thalia + Sphere? bleh
Hi everybody,
I'm planning on dusting off Grishoalbrand for a tournament this weekend, and I was wondering what everybody's opinions are on the sideboard for the post-unban meta.
My initial thoughts is that maybe Chalice isn't as good as it was before (with DS on the decline). Lots of midrange decks don't care all that much about Chalice, right?
Also, is Blood Moon good now? Yes, there are a lot of greedy manabases, but it seems that people are ready for it. And we don't really need them against big mana.
If that's the case, it opens up a ton of sideboard slots we could be using for our worst matchups. Any thoughts?
Agree on chalice. if grixis shadows, lantern et al have truly declined i can even see us going to Leyline of Sanctity to combat BBE and friends. Leylines and Blood Moons come in in roughly the same types of matchups. You could use the chalice slots to streamline the maindeck (move brutality and/or lightning axe to the sideboard and add Reunion/Ritual). You could also add something like a Grave Titan which is not a GY dependent WC, still good with Breach, hardcastable, and can win the game on its own. I'm planning to do both.
If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces C instead of any other type and amount. Each spell a player casts costs 1 more to cast for each other spell that player has cast this turn.
How detrimental does this feel to you guys? Obviously does very little vs the extremely fast hands, but is brutal if we go off later on. Maybe we'll need to run the 3rd Shattering Spree, or maybe some number of Abrade?
Welcome!
My first guess is that it'll be a minor hindrance. It's likely that these will be played by the fair decks that have bad matchups against us anyways, so I'm not too worried about it yet. Just another hate piece like Cage, except it's easier to beat than Cage. We could always just do our things on their End Step and pay a mana or two to cast shoals, and finish in one swift step on our turn.
I wrote my second piece for Manadeprived, delving into some matchup info as well as a few tips and tricks that may not be intuitive to people picking up the deck for the first time. Let me know if you have any questions/comments and I'll be happy to respond. Cheers
I might try hazoret sometime. I like it being indestructible and wins through a bridge and leyline of sanctity, but you're right that we don't want to be empty handed most of the time, so attacking is not as likely as I'd like it to be. I'll try it out one of these day just to see.
could be good. it can win the game on its own. Grave titan is a much better breach target though, which makes me lean towards grave titan.
Although to be fair, I've having really bad thoughts about sideboarding in Bedlam Revelers. too bad it's also reliant on the GY.
eagerly awaiting finalnub's part 2 artical.
I have a play where im unsure what is rigth (migth be very obvious).
gain life and draw more?
attack then draw more?
gain life spliceing ritual then draw more?
there is a manamorphose in the deck, I have sided in pacts and I saw Noxious Revival in game one.
pretty sure all of those line's lead to 80%+ win's but want to know who is best and why.
My plan A would be to attack, draw 7, then in the next main phase splice the ritual onto shoal (up to 3 red), cast ritual (4 red), splice breach onto another shoal if drawn.
Plan B would be similar to plan A, but should you have whiffed on a shoal or additional SSG / Rituals, then you could cast ritual (3 Red), cast manamorphose (convert at least 1 red to black), faithless looting discard Borborygmos, cast goryo's (if drawn) targeting Borborygmos. This way is vulnerable to surgical extraction (if you think they have that), but you mentioned you have sided in pacts and may draw that in those 21 cards.
In general, I would always attack with Griselbrand first. You are already a big favourite and one way you can fizzle is if blow your shoals and rituals and whiff on Borborygmos pre-combat without the extra 7 cards from the lifelink. That, or you whiff on Borborygmos, which is another argument for prioritizing cards first and therefore attacking first.
In your case, I would attack , draw 7, shoal pitch wurm splice ritual, and keep going. Many ways you can win here and I doubt it's possible to fizzle given you are 1 mana away, shoal+splice away, or loot+manamorphose away.
Or if you actually have your landdrop, you can win on the spot by playing land, SSGx2, shoal pitch wurm splice ritual (RRR), cast ritual (RRRR), tap land (RRRRx) breach Borborygmos Enraged. But I'm assuming the question is assuming no land drops.
My 2c
im 8-2 today, only losses to big mistakes (drawing card's to death when I had win and not drawing with grisel before blocks and ending on 7 life after blocks)
I have another one (please say so if this type of question's are not wanted)
all relevant spells in hand should be displade here, last 2 cards in deck is shoal and land and I have no landdrop
so quesetion, is there a way to win here? or am I forced to manamorphos and hope I hit on the 50/50 for the win?
spoiler I cast manamophose and drew...... shoal better lucky then good
Anyway, I think the relevant question to ask is can you beat a TKS next turn? Given that you've milled yourself to 2, I'm not sure what the answer is.
If you manamorphose, you win 50% of the times If it's a Shoal, you win by Shoal pitch Wurm splice Breach into Borborygmos. If you hit your Borborygmos, I would move to discard and keep SSG, Breach, Breach, Breach, Wurm, Griselbrand, Land. However,if they slam temple into TKS you are locked out if they take the Griselbrand, as neither a Wurm or Borborygmos is lethal in one shot and the TKS death trigger will mill you out.
If you just pass here and discard to something like: land, SSG, Breach, Breach, Griselbrand, Wurm, land. You don't have a way to ensure you have 3 griselbrands, a breach next turn, and a second breach the turn after. If you keep the hand that I outlined above and the opponent slams a TKS, they woudl smartly take the griselbrand and block the Wurm. We would be dead from the TKS death trigger since that would draw us the last card and we don't have any way to deal the last 2 points of damage.
Therefore, I think we just take our chances and manamorphose to try and hit the 50% guaranteed kill. If not, I would discard and keep: ritual, land, breach, breach, Wurm, x x. We are still dead to TKS with this line, but we've established that we are dead to TKS in all the other lines. I could be missing a piece in this puzzle though, but this seems correct. And the answer is pretty counterintuitive too, as I was inclined to just pass.
Last piece: I am not sure what your draw order was, but I'd be inclined to believe that you drew too many cards here. I would always try to evaluate what's the best turn that the opponent could have next turn, and if we can still beat that turn, I would be more inclined to slow down and pass. I would be inclined to believe that somewhere down the line, we could've sculpted a hand with two fast mana, land, two breach, and two wurm (unclear if you had two wurms left, but quite possible since you are at 11 life and therefore you had life to spare). WIth that hand, the opponent cannot beat us save for a surgical extraction on Breach, but we are not beating that line anyway without a shattering spree.
I have a big leak in not knowing when to pass (I have still not passed after getting a gris in play)
This situation is obviously way easier to solve if you did bring your shattering sprees in. Secondly, I'm assuming that our opponent went T1: Temple>Cage. To me this indicates that's probably the only reason they kept the hand and we probably don't have to worry about TKS coming next turn because at worst the odds of that happening are 3/52 as it looks like they missed a land drop already.
The right play is probably SSG, SSG, Manamorphose. If you hit you win if not Collective Brutality. See if they can TKS you. If not just keep a winning hand. If its possible, Keep a hand that wins next turn but also allows them to mess up should you get TKS'd like: Breach x2, Ritual, Borborygmos Enraged, Worldspine Wurm, untapped land, X. This way if they take ritual you win off of splice/breaching the wurm at them because of them being at 11 from Collective Brutality. Requires your opponent to misplay but sometimes that's your out. Bonus points if you bluff that your last card is the third ritual that you desperately needed.
I'd have to agree with finalnub that there probably was a point which you could of slowed down and passed. How did they game end up anyways?
2x Blackcleave Cliffs
1x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x Mountain
5x Swamp
4x Temple of Malice
Creatures (14)
2x Borborygmos Enraged
4x Griselbrand
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Worldspine Wurm
2x Cathartic Reunion
1x Collective Brutality
2x Desperate Ritual
4x Faithless Looting
4x Goryo's Vengeance
1x Lightning Axe
1x Manamorphose
4x Night's Whisper
4x Nourishing Shoal
4x Through the Breach
2x Anger of the Gods
3x Blood Moon
3x Chalice of the Void
1x Collective Brutality
2x Defense Grid
2x Shattering Spree
2x Tormod's Crypt
2-1 vs Jund.
Won game 1 in a turn 2 kill. Game 2 I lost even though I had turn 1 blood moon - he just top decked basics. For game 3 I changed Moons to Chalices and got turn 1 chalice on 1. It was a grindy game which I won in the end via TTB.
2-1 vs Bogles.
I think on game 2 I played Chalice on 1 turn 1 on the play which kinda shutdown his plan completely. I also learned I do not get wurm tokens if there is a Rest In Peace on board.
2-1 vs Affinity.
Yeah he did not have interaction against me. Sideboarded in Anger of the God and Shattering Spree, out went Night's Whispers as they are too slow against that deck.
2-1 vs Mardu tokens(?).
What a match. He told me after the match he had 4x Surgical Extraction in the deck after sideboard and he did not find one. Oh well...
Sorry for a miserably low on detail report - I usually forget my opponents and sideboard things. It is just that the matches were so close (i.e. topdecked the win at 1 life against bogles) that it could have gone either way. I think hardest thing was to answer question "should I discard griselbrand if I dont have another fatty, goryo's or TTB?" in the matches, because I did not know which one was more likely to be drawn.
BRG Griselbrand reanimator, BUR Grixis Control, UR Blue moon (with Possibility Storm sometimes)
Legacy:
BU Reanimator, BU Omni-tell, BUW Tin Fins, BUR ANT / TES, <> Eldrazi Stompy
I'm planning on dusting off Grishoalbrand for a tournament this weekend, and I was wondering what everybody's opinions are on the sideboard for the post-unban meta.
My initial thoughts is that maybe Chalice isn't as good as it was before (with DS on the decline). Lots of midrange decks don't care all that much about Chalice, right?
Also, is Blood Moon good now? Yes, there are a lot of greedy manabases, but it seems that people are ready for it. And we don't really need them against big mana.
If that's the case, it opens up a ton of sideboard slots we could be using for our worst matchups. Any thoughts?
2
Artifact
If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces C instead of any other type and amount. Each spell a player casts costs 1 more to cast for each other spell that player has cast this turn.
How detrimental does this feel to you guys? Obviously does very little vs the extremely fast hands, but is brutal if we go off later on. Maybe we'll need to run the 3rd Shattering Spree, or maybe some number of Abrade?
Agree on chalice. if grixis shadows, lantern et al have truly declined i can even see us going to Leyline of Sanctity to combat BBE and friends. Leylines and Blood Moons come in in roughly the same types of matchups. You could use the chalice slots to streamline the maindeck (move brutality and/or lightning axe to the sideboard and add Reunion/Ritual). You could also add something like a Grave Titan which is not a GY dependent WC, still good with Breach, hardcastable, and can win the game on its own. I'm planning to do both.
Welcome!
My first guess is that it'll be a minor hindrance. It's likely that these will be played by the fair decks that have bad matchups against us anyways, so I'm not too worried about it yet. Just another hate piece like Cage, except it's easier to beat than Cage. We could always just do our things on their End Step and pay a mana or two to cast shoals, and finish in one swift step on our turn.
http://manadeprived.com/grishoalbrand-primer-part-2-tips-matchup-and-sideboard-guide/